Fitness Tips for Arm-Toning Exercises

•Toning your arms can involve several types of exercises: aerobic, weight training, and isometric. Aerobic exercises will help burn fat, while resistance or weight training gives you lean arm muscles. Toning also involves critical rest periods, which help your arm muscles to repair torn fibers and create stronger ones. Consider using these exercises or a combination of them to tone your arms.

Aerobic Exercise
•Aerobic exercises aren't just good for your heart. Aerobic exercises also help burn fat, especially if they involve repetitive motions. Kickboxing aerobics, for example, makes use of arm motions that simulate several boxing punches like hooks, uppercuts and jabs. Those motions will help tone your arms by forcing your arm muscles to quickly expand and contract.

Weight Training
•You can utilize weight training or resistance training to help tone your arms. Medium-resistance weight training helps build lean muscle, which in turn burns more fat during resting periods than with aerobic exercises alone. For best results, use free weights like dumb bells and kettle bells so that your arms must rely on themselves to fight resistance. Dumbbell curls tone your biceps. Focus the resistance on the bicep by standing with your back straight and keeping your inner arm pinned against your body as you curl, not allowing kinetic energy to bring the weight up and down.

Isometric Exercise
•Isometric exercises focus on specific muscle groups, using slow repetitions. Utilize isometric exercises if you want to tone your biceps, triceps, deltoids, or forearm muscles. An example of an isometric exercise for the arm is the slow push up. Perform a push up as normal with your arms under your shoulders, fully extended. Your back and legs should be in a straight line, with your feet no more than 12 inches apart. When you come back up from the "down" position, do so at a five-count pace. This should provide added resistance to all your arm muscles.

Rest and Repair
•Give your arms at least one day of rest in between heavy workout sessions, whether you are doing resistance training or aerobic exercises with your arms. Resting allows your muscle fibers to repair and become stronger. This repair period also consumes fat and stored glucose. Not resting your arms not only prevents your body from repairing itself, it can result in serious injuries to your arms.


Source: ehow.com